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"People... such strange animals." The yakuza enforcer (Ryo Ikebe) no longer recognizes the outside world after a stint behind bars, underworld bosses have merged and now talk business under hollow Da Vinci replicas. The authentic Mona Lisa smile belongs to the young high-roller (Mariko Kaga) he meets in the gaming parlor, just the haven of insular ritualism for the two to match existential voids. "The stakes are so small," gripes the dainty sensation-seeker prone to after-hours races down empty Tokyo freeways. Considering a fix of heroin, she's offered an even bigger thrill by the brooder: "I'm gonna kill a man." Masahiro Shinoda's adamantine transposition of Bob le Flambeur to modernist Japan, land of bustling days full of "lifeless" faces and "wicked nights" made for perilous gambling. The assassin takes a numb philosophical outlook, "just a matter of whose number came up, whose turn it was," the callow hothead who fumbles a vengeful stabbing (Isao Sasaki) becomes a chum, gifted a suit with his own dutifully severed pinkie in the pocket. The rectangle of the hanafuda table fits the GrandScope widescreen while a cold-eyed torpedo (Takashi Fujiki) slouches balefully in the corner, a police raid sends the protagonists under the bedsheets as pretend lovers with a pretend game. "I play cards. What else is there?" A most attentive sound design encompasses the marked tick-tock of a clock shop and the Elvis Presley muzak of a bowling alley, the clattering of chips and a croupier's chanting, discordant Toru Takemitsu percussion for days. A slow-motion nightmare cracks the sleek surface, the church climax with a Purcell aria derides the possibility of bloody redemption. "It's so pointless." "Yes. It is." The line of influence extends from The Thomas Crown Affair to The Friends of Eddie Coyle to Heat. Cinematography by Masao Kosugi. With Naoki Sugiura, Shinichiro Mikami, Koji Nakahara, Chisako Hara, Seiji Miyaguchi, and Eijiro Tono. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |